Bill Thomas’s Cheetah may very well have become a legend on par with Carroll Shelby’s Cobra if it hadn’t been for a number of factors, a shop fire and a sudden withdrawal of funding from Chevrolet among them. However, Thomas had even larger plans beyond those homologation racing coupes, and the never-completed prototype for those plans, what he called the Super Cheetah, has come up for sale after resting in a garage for 40 years.

Thomas was certainly no unknown quantity in Chevrolet performance during the 1950s and 1960s. An engineer by training, the Southern Californian took an interest in Chevrolets – Corvettes in particular – and not only racked up dozens of road-race wins behind a Corvette’s wheel, but also became an expert in tuning Chevrolet’s Rochester fuel-injection systems and small-block V-8s. He got his foot in the door with Chevrolet in 1961, sticking small-blocks into Chevy IIs, and when Shelby introduced the Cobra, Thomas approached Chevrolet with a plan to strike back: Setting up shop in Anaheim, California, with master fabricator Don Edmunds, he’d build 100 fiberglass-bodied Chevrolet-powered coupes to satisfy FIA homologation requirements. Fuel-injected 327s would provide the power, running through Corvette drivetrain components, including the Corvette’s independent rear suspension, though the drivetrain would be considerably shortened – to the point where Thomas required only a u-joint, and no driveshaft between the tail of the transmission and the rear end’s center section.

To package it all, Thomas decided on a custom chassis with a 90-inch wheelbase and a sleek gullwing-door coupe body. After Edmunds finished the first two prototype bodies in aluminum from California Metal Stamping sections built over Edmunds’s wooden buck, the rest were built from fiberglass. The bodies provided little room for the driver – and even less venting for the heat that built up inside of them – but also dropped the Cheetah’s weight down to around 1,500 pounds and enabled 200-plus-MPH top speeds. Even before homologation, the Cheetah competed successfully in SCCA’s modified classes, but a rule change during the 1964 racing season – to force manufacturers to build 1,000 cars for homologation instead of 100 – contributed to Chevrolet’s decision to pull its funding for the Cheetah project in May 1964. According to Bob Auxier of BTM Race Cars, which builds continuation Cheetahs today, Bill Thomas built just 19 chassis and 33 bodies before the funding ran out (At least one company, Allied Fiberglass, offered replica bodies for sale for a while.). While Thomas tried to keep the venture going on his own afterward, a September 1965 fire brought those efforts to a halt. What remained of the venture was sold off at a sheriff’s auction in the summer of 1970.

Original rendering of the Super Cheetah.

One reason Thomas tried to keep the Cheetah alive even after Chevrolet’s withdrawal from the project ironically plays into Chevrolet’s reasons for withdrawing in the first place. According to Auxier, Thomas only intended for the Cheetahs to serve as the developmental prototypes for the Super Cheetah, a grand touring car meant for street use that would address all the issues that cropped up on the “little Cheetah.” Thomas widened it by four inches, lengthened it by 19 inches, made the doors 10 inches wider, and fixed some suspension issues that plagued the initial cars. He also envisioned the Super Cheetah using a choice of big-block or small-block engines, manual or automatic transmissions, and creature comforts such as air conditioning.

Chevrolet’s experimental Corvair Monza GT.

His inspiration for the Super Cheetah’s styling came in part from the Chevrolet Corvair Monza GT. According to Auxier, Thomas did some developmental work on the Monza GT’s engine and chassis in 1961-1962 and obviously took a shine to the kamm-style tail that Larry Shinoda and Tony Lapine incorporated in their design for the mid-engine experimental car. “A lot of people said that the Super Cheetah was styled off the Cobra Daytona coupe, but that’s not the case,” Auxier said. “Bill had his own drawings done for the Super Cheetah that clearly show the rear end inspired by the Monza GT.”

The front end, however, was pure Cheetah. In fact, Thomas took the aluminum nose, cowl, doglegs and windshield header off one of the two prototype Cheetahs – according to Auxier, the one that he sent to GM for testing purposes (the very first of those two cars) – and mated it to the Super Cheetah’s rear section. Because Edmunds had left Thomas’s venture before Thomas began work on the Super Cheetah, Thomas again turned to California Metal Stamping to shape the remainder of the the aluminum pieces for the body, then had Don Borth and Warren Williams assemble the body. “Bill used the aluminum body simply because he didn’t have the funds for another body,” Auxier said. “He knew that the prototype’s aluminum body would be torn up racing anyway.” (Indeed, the first prototype Cheetah’s chassis was rebodied in fiberglass and wrecked multiple times over the years. Apparently only three of the first-run Cheetah’s still have their original bodies mated to their original chassis.)

Thomas began work on the Super Cheetah in 1963, before Chevrolet pulled its funding. He generated a spec sheet and even outlined plans for fiberglass-bodied production Super Cheetahs and to formulate an assault on Le Mans in 1965 with the aluminum prototype Super Cheetah, likely with Jerry Titus at the wheel.

“Chevrolet got nervous when they saw Bill’s plans for the Super Cheetah,” Auxier said. “They saw it as competition for the Corvette, and that probably caused them to pull out more than anything.”

At 100 units, that wouldn’t have been very likely, but the 1,000-unit mark started to look somewhat significant against the Corvette’s production numbers, at the time hovering around 22,000 to 23,000.

Whatever the exact cause of the pullout, Thomas continued to piece the Super Cheetah together for the next year or so, installing a drivetrain, suspension, brakes (discs versus the little Cheetah’s drums), and wheels and tires to make it a roller, but after the fire – which occurred in a separate part of the shop from where Thomas kept the Super Cheetah – he put it away into storage and focused on building race engines. At the sheriff’s auction, none other than Don Edmunds bought the Super Cheetah with a winning bid of $300. Edmunds then sold it about a year later for $1,750, untouched, sitting on the chassis jig for the smaller Cheetahs with just a small-block V-8 mocked into place. A man in Memphis, Tennessee, bought it and then left it in his garage, again untouched, for the next 40 years.

Super Cheetah as found in a garage in Memphis, Tennessee.

Auxier – who began building continuation Cheetahs with Bill Thomas’s blessing in 2001, before Thomas died in October 2009 – said he tracked the Super Cheetah down 20 years ago but wasn’t able to actually view it until the family of the man who bought it agreed to sell it to him in August 2011. Since removing it from its garage, he has made it a roller again, this time with a 427-cu.in. Chevrolet V-8, Muncie M22 four-speed transmission and 2.72-geared Corvette rear end. While he’s currently working toward finishing it in the exact configuration that Bill Thomas envisioned for the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans – in Corvette Daytona Blue with red and white stripes up the nose and black interior – he has also put it up for sale on the Hemmings.com classifieds with an asking price of $1.25 million. Auxier said his original plan was to finish the Super Cheetah for the 2014 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance; in his listing on Hemmings.com he will consider taking on an investor to complete it for the concours. “I think it’s worth $2.5 million if I finish it,” he said.

Auxier had put the Cheetah continuation company up for sale in 2011, but found no buyers and said he was simply looking for investors at the time. He has since returned to building continuation Cheetahs from his shop in Glendale, Arizona. He also said he is developing plans to build more Super Cheetahs in carbon fiber.

46 Responses to “Once-lost Super Cheetah prototype, discovered in garage after 40 years, now for sale”

I have always loved the Cheetah shape. I looked at it like it was chevy’s cobra. I was all about chevy then. I can remember a couple years ago a story about this Super Cheetah and there was a lot of talk about it not really being what the person was saying about it. I remember the price was very high, so the big Questions about what it really was. Now I read here that it is genuine.

There was a kit car company in the late 1980s which tried to get a Cheetah clone going (on a Corvette chassis) but it apparently never went anywhere. That company also made a Cobra kit car based on a Vett frame – I think the company was called Attack or similar.

I love the Cheetah, found and purchased a Fiberglass Trends body hangning in a garage just a few miles from my house. The owner bought it new, took some photos with him on milkcrate and wheels in the wheelwells then hung it from the ceiling where I cut it down 40 years later. I sold it to Fred Yeakel as I found out after the purchase that a 6’3″ 220 lb guy does not fit in the Cheetah. Even without a helmet my head was above the roofline, not good if there was a serious crash. The Super Cheetahs extra dimensions would suit me better. I still want to acquire another Cheetah and add 6-12″ in length, for legroom and hopefully to tilt the seat back and gain some headroom.

I have known a very privet guy that has an orig 1 of 1 cheetah that has been in a garage for at least 40 years that is eather a 427 or 428 and might be avail at some point soon. without a dought a super rare car.

In 1965 I was heavy into sports cars and SCCA racing here in Seattle. Jerry Grant was racing a Cheetah then and it was a wild looking creation compared to everything else I was seeing at SIR. Brute power and FAST!

I remember in 1989 at the MONTEREY HISTORICS when Fred Yeakel flipped the keys to Bob Bondurant and offered him a drive in his ”original” # 8 ALLEN GREEN CHEETAH. Bob handed the keys to Dick Guldstrand who inturn handed them back to Fred. Both racers said ”no thank ypu”….the short wheel base makes these cars very unsafe in a corner. And the interior heat will kill you if the handling does not.

Granted in the day the suspension was horrid (according to Bill Thomas Jr.). my Cheetah is all C4 suspension with cantilever coil overs in the rear. 700Hp GM small block @2400 Lbs. Turns like it’s on rails and SCARY FAST!!!

I wish GM had put the Turbo effort into the Chevy Small Block powered cars instead of that junk Buick V6. EPA had a hand in that. Five of those 231 V6 Buick lemon motors blew up on me and all were replaced with reliable Chevy power. That stupid Buick TC cover mounted oil pump and Aluminum housing? What a disaster. The steel gears wore the case and no more oil pressure! BOOM!

OK…I am a Ford guy, BUT as a pit crew member for Jerry Hanson at Pewaukee Farms, Brainerd, Road America, and Blackhawk Farms in the ’60s I had the privilege to see a Cheetah run in anger. Crude and VERY hard to control, they were awe inspiring to a youngster just learning that he knew nothing. I still don’t know anything…but the Cheetah was cool then and it is now.

Larry Y just touched on Chevy’s sensitivity to their fair haired child…Corvette.

A few years back, following Pontiac’s Fiero release, Chevy went boo-hoo-hooing to GM’s ‘big wigs’ to ensure that the ‘excitement division’ keep the Fiero powered with a kiddy car motor.

Fiero…small, nicely sculpted, fun to drive, and a potential ‘vette killer, Chevy couldn’t stand the possibility of Fiero blowing the doors off their precious baby.

That the Fiero GT V6 ever got the go ahead is amazing, but it’s likely the propensity of the base Iron Duke 4 to leak oil onto the wrong places, turning the Fiero into a flaming ‘hot car,’ had more to do with the V6 decision than Chevy’s objections. The Fiero GT just gave a taste of what COULD have been before GM pulled the plug.

Year’s later, it’s also amazing that the Corvette based Cadillac two seater ever saw the light of day…but, after taming Corvette to become a gentleman’s car, Caddy’s two seater was panned as being too expensive for the content (planned by GM,?) guaranteeing a short production life and making it an instant collectible.

With GM’s bankruptcy, shed divisions, and downsizing, it’s unlikely the ‘General’ will ever try another two seater to scare the diapers off Chevy’s bosses.

..used to watch these beasts race at Mosport, painted green. They were brutally fast and sounded unbelievable – full-length open headers and big injector stacks sticking up out of the hood. I also heard what was stated here – that they were beasts to drive. When you think of all that power with that little weight all packed into a 90 in. wheelbase, it’s no wonder they were beasts to drive – in fact you didn’t really drive a Cheetah – you just aimed it – and all that heat as well..must have been somethin’ else!

A FEW YEARS AGO I SAW A SIMILAR LOOKING “FUNNYCAR” @ DON GARLITS MOPAR SHOW IN OCALA ,FL. . IT WAS SET UP FOR DRAG RACING & IT WAS NAMED “ABRA CADAVER” WITH A MAGIC CORPSE PAINTED ON THE SIDES ! … COULD IT BE ONE OF THE LONG LOST CHEETAHS ???

The son of the founder goes by Bill Thomas jr. he moonlights up at Irwindale Speedway as a mechanic of Speed Wong Racing. Bill may be the 3rd, but he definately goes by “Bill Thomas Jr.” and is still alive and well as I type this.

Bill Thomas was’nt the first guy to be ignored by the corporate twits at GM.Carroll Shelby had approached them first when he wanted to proceed with what was to become the Cobra.His plan being to transplant a small block Chev into a Austin Healey which until mid 56 had the very same 90 wheelbase as the later AC Cobra,about the same weight of 2,100 lbs but the corporate minds at GM did’nt want to undercut the sales of their Corvette and at Austin,they did’nt figure that they needed any help selling their Healey roadster at that time.If only……..

Bill Thomas worked at a GM dealer in Calif. which Don Nicholson(DYNO DON) ran the dyno. He is the master mind of the Cheetah. Bill Thomas Jr. is the son of THE Bill Thomas. If Bill Jr. was Bill Thomas the 3RD, The cheetah would have been developed in the 1940’s not the early 60’s

How was it “found” when the man who bought it and left it on the wooden buck was mentioned in the biography “Shelby” and Bill Thomas knew where it was 20 years ago? I expect better research, not to mention not posting contradictory info to the story IN the story from Hemmings

My best friend has a 1965 Cheetah. I helped him buy it in 1973 and introduced him to Larry Webb official Cheetah Mechanic when we were in Seattle. It had a 396 when purchased, later upgraded to L-88 specs. It had factory rear flares that were pop rivited on so really big tires fit. I own a Griffith 400. We used to race together in the 80’s. Many of the comments above are right on. Both cars have short wheelbases, both are VERY fast, and both are brutally HOT in the cockpit.

I have owned the Alan Green Chevrolet Cheetah since 1989. In the last year I have come to know Bill Thomas III, his sister and brothers. While he is known as Bill Thomas Jr now his father was actually Bill Thomas Jr. His dad was known as Bill Thomas without the Jr attached.
Yes all the stories about the Cheetah being very warm inside are correct. Larry Webb was the mechanic on my car in 1964 & 1965. He drove the car at the Westwood Reunion in 2009.